


A Lily And A Lotus

by phantomthief_fee



Category: Smile For Me (Video Game)
Genre: Horror Elements, Ib AU, Ib is kind of a creepy game, Minor Violence, Originally Posted on Tumblr
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-03
Updated: 2019-09-03
Packaged: 2020-10-05 09:20:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,667
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20486528
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/phantomthief_fee/pseuds/phantomthief_fee
Summary: Two people lost in an art gallery. You've heard this story before. But perhaps not quite like this.





	A Lily And A Lotus

[@sun-flowerkid](https://tmblr.co/m8c1LV2NnccwpJtRfswvTAA) made an[ Ib AU ](https://sun-flowerkid.tumblr.com/post/187309357051/some-concept-doodles-from-the-ib-au-stream-i-did-a)and it’s amazing and I wanted to write something for it.

* * *

Kamal had stepped away from his parents for five minutes. Five minutes! That shouldn’t have been enough time for everything to go wrong! Still, here he was, stuck in some hellscape of the art gallery he’d been visiting, chased by weird paper doll creatures and multiple blue portrait ladies who dragged themselves after him. Kamal had always wanted to go on an adventure, but this wasn’t what he’d wanted.

“This is stupid!” He screamed as he ran away from **another** one of the crawling women. The woman offered no reply, save for a rasping laugh. He managed to get to the door at the back of the gallery room, slamming it closed behind him. Doors seemed an effective deterrent to the women since they couldn’t reach the doorknobs. The weird paper people couldn’t open doors either. Which seemed weird. But as long as they couldn’t get him, Kamal wasn’t complaining. 

“Okay.” He turned away from the door, hands on his hips. “There’s gotta be someone else here.” He didn’t entirely understand the danger of the situation he was currently in, being 7. 

“Oh! Gotta make sure I have my flower!” He reached into his pocket to make sure his lotus was still there. He’d woken up with it in his pocket, and when he got hurt petals fell off of it. He’d found vases filled with water that healed the flower and him, which was nice since he’d gotten hurt a few times. Not majorly, but one of the painting ladies had scratched the back of his leg a couple of times.

Thankfully, his lotus was still in his pocket and he hadn’t lost any petals since the last vase. For a moment, Kamal just admired the lotus. It was the most beautiful flower he’d ever seen. It almost didn’t look real. 

“Okay.” He tucked the flower back in. “Gotta keep going.” The door he’d just gone through opened up into a hallway, with a path on either side of him. He peeked down each path curiously before deciding to go to the left. The path to the left was a dead end, with a room jutting out from the wall on the right. Kamal tried the door, only to find it locked. 

“I gotta find another key?” He groaned. He kept having to look for keys around here. He stepped away from the door, pouting. 

“Huh?” He stopped as a flash of white caught his attention. On the ground were what appeared to be lily petals, as well as drops of blood.

“Flower petals?” Kamal picked one up. They felt pretty real, not like some of the other fake flowers he’d seen here. 

“That means someone else is here!” He gasped, starting to jump up and down and clap his hands together. Without another thought, he charged back down the hallway. The other person must have gone that way! He didn’t even stop to notice the sign on the wall behind the flower petals. The sign that had been under each of the blue woman portraits before they’d jumped off the wall. 

_ **Martha.** _

.

Just past the area Kamal had come out in he found what he was looking for. Another person. The other person was tall, much taller than him, and lay in a bit of a crumpled pile on the ground between two paintings. One of them had a stupid smile with its tongue lolling out. That one had poisonous spit. Kamal remembered that. He was going to stay away from that. So, he crouched down beside the person pile. 

“Hey, are you okay?” He asked, poking their head repeatedly. Whoever they were, they had really pretty hair. It was so long and curly. And those ribbons were really cute. He received a groan in response. 

“Did one of those scary art thingies hurt you?” Kamal tried to roll the person over. Unfortunately, they turned out to be rather heavy, so he ended up just lifting their torso a few centimeters off the ground before losing his grip and toppling onto the person.

“Aw, fudge!” Kamal huffed. This was harder than he’d thought. But he could do it! He got up, rolling up his sweater sleeves, and tried once more. 

It took a few tries, but he did manage to flip them over, revealing his new companion to be a boy a bit older than him. He looked pretty awful. Like someone had beat him up. There were scratches on his face and leg and a few bruises forming. 

“Oh geez!” Kamal started to look for the other boy’s flower. If he had a flower, this boy should too. He needed to get it into water so the boy would feel better. But Kamal couldn’t find the flower. The only thing he found of note was the small key clutched in the other boy’s freckled green hand. 

“Hmm…” Kamal turned the key over in his hand. “Maybe this goes to that door back there. Maybe the flower’s in there!” He didn’t stop to think why the door might have been locked by the other boy or what the blood drops amidst the petals might mean. 

Kamal made his way back to the locked door, happily fitting the key in and opening it. He fully expected to find the flower on the ground in the open. Instead, he found a strange statue on one side of the room and one of the painting ladies on the other. The woman was gleeful as her slender fingers plucked petal upon petal from the flower, her red smile wide. Her teeth were so unnaturally white. Kamal let out an involuntary squeak, drawing the woman’s attention to him. Her smile widened, her single visible red eye fixing upon him. She began to swiftly drag herself toward him, nails digging into the floor and leaving deep gouges.

“Stay away from me!” Kamal screamed, immediately running out and shutting the door behind him. As soon as he shut the door, though, he remembered the flower inside. The other boy needed that flower. But the lady was in there…

He didn’t have to ponder this quandary for long because a moment or two later the woman came bursting through a window Kamal hadn’t even noticed was there. Kamal screamed again, darting back into the door. He looked around for a place to hide only to find nothing. As he heard the woman’s shriek outside, he snatched up the flower, threw open the door, then ran as fast as he could back to the main area. 

He slammed the door behind him, sinking to the ground and gasping for breath. He could hear the woman pounding on the door. She wasn’t getting through, though. The doors seemed to stop them. He sat there for a bit, waiting for his heart to stop beating so fast. Once he felt better, he got up and put the flower in the vase. Upon touching the water, the petals regrew and the flower instantly perked up. It was a lily, cream in color with little brown freckles. 

“Whoa,” Kamal whispered. “So pretty.” 

To the right, he could hear someone stirring. Oh! The other boy was probably awake now that his flower had been fixed. He snatched up the flower and bolted to where the other boy was. The boy was sitting up, looking timidly around. He was mumbling to himself in a language Kamal didn’t know. He looked better now. His freckles were really cute. 

“Hi!” Kamal bounded in, waving excitedly. The boy made a small squeak, scrambling back. 

“Oh, sorry.” Kamal stopped, his smile growing sheepish. “I probably scared you.”

“Did you…heal me?” The boy asked. He had a pretty thick accent. 

“Yeah!” Kamal held out the lily. “That blue lady was tearing this up, but when I put it in water you got better!” The boy took the lily, cradling it in his hands as one would something fragile and treasured.

“Thank you.” He murmured, looking up at Kamal. His eyes were really pretty but so sad.

“You’re welcome!” Kamal gave him a big smile. “You should keep that close, though. If it gets hurt, then you get hurt too.” The boy nodded, gingerly tucking his lily away in his pocket. 

“Anyway, I’m Kamal!” Kamal stuck his hand out. “And you’re really pretty!”

“P-Pretty?” The boy stammered, his face darkening with a blush. “No…No. Father says boys can’t be pretty. Is bad.”

“Well, your father’s a jerkface and wrong.” Kamal folded his arms in determination. “‘Cause you’re pretty.” The boy stared at Kamal for a moment or two, then smiled shyly. 

“Thank you.” He mumbled. “I am Boris. Still learning English. I am sorry.” He awkwardly took Kamal’s hand and shook it. 

“That’s okay,” Kamal replied brightly. “You don’t need to apologize. Learning a language is hard and you’re doing really good!” 

“Thank you.” Boris smiled a bit wider, although he tried to hide it behind his sweater sleeve. 

“You’re welcome.” Kamal rocked back and forth on his heels. “I’m glad I’m not alone down here. I mean, I was doing okay on my own, but I think I probably would’ve gotten lonely by myself.” 

“Yes.” Boris nodded, his lips twisting at the memory of the painting woman who’d stolen his lily. “Don’t like being alone here. Many scary monsters.”

“Those blue ladies are the worst.” Kamal stuck his tongue out. Boris nodded again, hunching his shoulders. 

“But!” Kamal grabbed Boris’ hand in his. “We’re not alone anymore! We can face them together!”

“To…gether…” Boris echoed, his eyes going wide. Kamal smiled again and a warm feeling developed in Boris’ stomach. Was this what it felt like to have a friend? 

“Yes. Together.” He smiled. He’d been rather scared, ending up here alone. But if he had someone like Kamal by his side, maybe he’d be okay. At least until he reunited with his family, that was. 

**Author's Note:**

> Please check out the original AU on Tumblr.


End file.
